NASS versus Presidency: The unending row

The crisis of confidence between the National Assembly and the Presidency over budget implementation is not abating, with the legislators alleging that some presidential aides are stoking the fire. Assistant Editor Onyedi Ojiabor, who covers the Senate, reports.

AT the inception of this administration, it was expected that the executive and the legislature would work hamoniously in the national interest. However, the war of words between the two arms of government over budget implementation indicates that this is far from the case.Utterances by some presidential aides since the presentation of the budget have sent signals that the future holds less promise of a smooth relationship between the two politically active arms of government.

What should be the appropriate oil benchmark? This is at the heart of the rift that is threatening the relationship between the two institutions and causing the fate of the Appropriation Bill to hang in the balance.

Although the 2013 Appropriation Bill has scaled the second reading in the Senate, and has since been passed to the Joint Committee on Appropriation and Finance, analysts are of the opinion that budget defence by ministries, departments and agencies (MDA) might be turbulent.

Some observers insist the lawmakers have not scrutinized government’s spending as closely as they should, probably because of inadequate expertise, time and resources at the disposal of the parliamentarians. The apparent disdainful attitude of some presidential aides towards the National Assembly has been fingered as one of the sore points in the relationship between the two arms.

Members of the National Assembly have had cause to complain openly that presidential aides are plotting to set them on collision course with Mr. President. When Senate President David Mark described the Senior Special Assistant to the President on Public Affairs, Dr. Doyin Okupe, and Special Adviser to the President on Political Matters, Alhaji Ahmed Gulak, as “fifth columnists” working at cross purposes with President Goodluck Jonathan, many thought the message would sink. It did not.

Mark was contributing to a motion on alleged inflammatory comments against the National Assembly by ministers and some presidential aides. It was a single prayer motion sponsored by no less a person than the Deputy Majority Leader, Senator Abdul Ningi. The Senate had earlier, through its Committee on Information, Media and Public Affairs, descended on Minister of Information, Mr. Labaran Maku, for dismissing resolutions of the National Assembly as mere advisory and not binding on President Jonathan.

Senators took offence that a minister who did not pass through the severity of election could dismiss their resolution with a wave of the hand. Maku was therefore nvited by the Senator Enyinnaya Abaribe-led Committee to explain himself. Recognising that he was wrong, Maku apologised to the Senate. The minister was left to go and sin no more.

Ningi in his lead debate on the motion tagged: “Inflammatory statements against the National Assembly by ministers and aides of Mr. President” observed with “dismay, the regular attacks on the legislature by ministers and aides of President Jonathan.”

The Bauchi Central Senator said he was “scandalised by the most recent one” in which Ahmed Gulak “threw all caution to the wind and remarked that members of the National Assembly were ‘talking like illiterates’.” He said he was provoked that Gulak added that the National Assembly was “passing laws that are not implementable.”

Other Senators including Deputy Senate President, Ike Ekweremadu, Senate Leader, Victor Ndoma-Egba, Mohammed Ndume, James Manager, Smart Adeyemi, Awaisu Kuta, and Olushola Adeyeye, did not find the outburst by the presidential aide funny. For them, Gulak’s outburst was a direct affront on the integrity of the National Assembly. But Mark, in his characteristic style of calling a spade by its name, took it further.

The Senate President posited, with a dint of sadness in his voice, that presidential aides are gradually but steadily, leading President Jonathan on a collision course with the National Assembly.

“We all feel very hurt and very bad about it. We say this against the backdrop of the fact that Mr. President, as a person, is a gentleman. Nobody can fault him. If you have a personal interaction with him, you will know that he is a gentleman. But, what is disturbing is that he has surrounded himself with aides that are not gentlemen in any respect.

“Aides who have failed woefully to do what they are supposed to do and because they are totally incapable, mentally and otherwise in doing their work, they are finding a way to please Mr. President. They think they can please him by attacking the National Assembly, disparaging the National Assembly and trying to belittle us. Giving an impression that we don’t know what we are doing is extremely unfortunate.

“These are people who should really try to build bridges between the executive and the legislature but they are doing the exact opposite. Any bridge that is existing now they want to totally demolish it so that they can be on their own and in the process take advantage and give the President an impression that he needs to do something through them.

Mark berated the idea of always finding occassion to belittle the lawmakers. He accused them of working against the interest of Mr. President.

“We don’t want intermediaries between us and the executive and they are not capable of doing that either. Like all of you here, I am not aware of any aide who has gone and won an election in his local government. Not one. And yet they find it very easy to make comments about members of the National Assembly.

“I think Victor (Ndoma-Egba) hit it squarely on the head by saying they are fifth columnists who don’t want the President to succeed. But, on the other hand, we will not allow detractors to force us away from the course that we set our radar. We mean well for this country. The fact of the matter is, if Gulak is serious about his advice, we will take it in good faith and act on his advice. Here is an aide who is actually advising his own principal on a collision course; who is going out of his way to tell the people on the other side that you are not firing enough shots.

“I think by now, truly, Gulak has no business in the Villa anymore. But since it is not our duty to employ people for Mr. President, it is not our duty to sack his aides either. By now, I think he ought to know what to do with his aides who are putting him on a collision course with the National Assembly. They certainly can’t be described as good and helpful aides. I also believe that two wrongs cannot make a right.”

Senators unanimously adopted the only prayer of the motion to urge President Jonathan, to “caution his ministers, special advisers and other aides making inflammatory statements against the legislature to avoid straining the cordial relations between the legislature and the executive.”

If you thought one or two lessons were learnt from the motion, that was not to be. In a bid to devise a cover for the remark that members of the National Assembly were “talking like illiterates”, Gulak claimed it was Ekweremadu who called his colleagues illiterates.

The presidential aide claimed in an interview that he did not call National Assembly members a bunch of illiterates. Observers feel that Gulak’s defence is an after thought.

The Political Adviser said, “I didn’t call them illiterates. Let me tell you,: just yesterday, I was reading in the papers that the Deputy Senate President, that is Senator Ekweremadu, said some legislators can barely write their names. He said so. He said so. I did not say it. So, if most of them can barely write their names, then how will they understand the intricacies of budget?

“I did not say it. It is the Deputy Senate President that said it and if he really said it, so, it means the National Assembly has a long way to go. Some observers described Gulak’s claim that Ekweremadu called most National Assembly members illiterates is “spurious.”

Ekweremadu, who spoke on the topic “The political ideology of the Great Zik of Africa and challenges of leadership in Nigeria” at the 2nd Zik annual lecture series of the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ) in Awka, capital of Anambra State, stressed the fact that the 21st century Nigeria needed knowledgeable leadership at all levels to effectively drive development to realise the lofty dreams of the nation’s founding fathers.

What is more, analysts say Ekweremadu never spoke about the whole of National Assembly members but concentrated on the South East representation at the National Assembly in his lecture.

Ekweremadu’s frustration over poor representation by South East parliamentarians may have been borne out of the fact that he is the highest political office holder from the zone. Even at that, Ekweremadu was said to have spoken specifically about two states, specifically, Ebonyi State where a certain former senator was so overwhelmed by parliamentary processes that he failed to make any meaningful contribution for the four years he sat as a senator of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

Ekweremadu rightly believed that if the quality of representation from the South East continued that way, the zone would continue to lose out in the scheme of things in the country. Of course, Ekweremadu must have appreciated the fact that representatives like Senators Uche Chukwumerije, Chris Anyanwu, Ayogu Eze, Enyinnaya Abaribe, Chris Ngige, Deputy Speaker Emeka Ihedioha, Hon. Nkeiruka Onyejiocha and a few others who are considered first eleven are also from the South East.

But is that enough, especially for a zone that has produced some of the best brains in the country, including the Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe himself and Dr. Chuba Okadigbo?

Observers posited that if the quality of Zik and Okadigbo’s representation during their days as lawmakers is juxtaposed with the quality of most of the latter day representatives from the region, the frustration of Ekweremadu would be better understood.

A point of reference, observers say was a certain Senator from Ebonyi State who repeatedly told his stunned colleagues during the thirdTerm Debate that he was “finished.”

The frustration could have influenced attempts by the National Assembly to amend sections of the Constitution on the academic qualifications for the office of the President, Vice President, Governor, Deputy Governor, federal and state legislators from West African School Certificate to tertiary education. This has however been killed in the House of Representatives. The Senate passed the amendment.

Special Adviser on Political Matters to the Deputy Senate President, Hon. Okey Ozoani described Gulak’s outburst in the interview as “another feat of thoughtless and disparaging statements directed at the National Assembly and its officers.”

Gulak, in the said interview, claimed that the National Assembly should be blamed for poor budget implementation, accusing the institution of late passage of Appropriation Bill.

But Ozoani said that it is not surprising that Gulak has found pleasure in courting trouble for the President by “his reckless statements on not just the National Assembly and its officers, but also on respected elder statesmen.”

For him, while Ekweremadu would not want to join issues with Gulak, it is necessary for him (Gulak) to know the limit of his “importance-seeking, fawning, and trouble-courting fits.”

Ozoani continued, “First, it is unfortunate that Gulak is quick to point out when the 2012 budget was passed without also stating when it was submitted to the National Assembly.

“The 2012 Appropriation Bill was submitted in December 2011 and passed by the National Assembly in March 2012. Gulak’s claim that enough work goes into the Appropriation Bills before submission to the National Assembly does not in any way preclude the Parliament as co-managers of the economy from subjecting such budget estimates to legislative scrutiny and due process.

“It is also gratifying that the President had taken into account the observations of the National Assembly on the need for early submission of budget estimates by submitting the 2013 Appropriation Bill earlier this time, in the month of October. While it is gratifying that the President has recently had cause to disown Gulak over his poor conducts and unguarded statements hauled at the National Assembly and its officers, for the umpteenth time, it s advisable for Mr. President to review the stewardship and real inner motives of Mr. Ahmed Gulak whom, either oblivious of his job schedule or lacking the competence to undertake it, is preoccupied with fomenting trouble for his Administration.”

The last has not been heard on the crisis of confidence brewing between the two arms of government. But, it is the prayer of many Nigerians that the altercations would turn a blessing for the people as it could mean that the legislature would perform its constitutional role of oversight over executive bodies more effectively.

like I’ve often said “the education in one’s head cannot be rated above zero, but de exercise of it subsists for all purposes”. De SENATE members may be brainy in their heads but Gulak havn’t seen de exercise of it in many matters. E.g. Pension fund probe, fuel subsidy etc.etc. Secondly, when u bathe naked with a person, he sees ur nakedness. The senate under incompetent Mark (NOT REPS) have often shown its iliteracy by beggin 4 money and keepin quiet on national issues. Maybe Gulak as a political aide to Mr president have had to share Ghana-must-go bags to d upper house to accent to fraud within de ranks of de executive. On de whole de man is not a child